IYDIYD 3
During the third session, the group raided the cult complex of the Brotherhood of Sholaith, learned more about the truth behind the extraplanar problems plaguing the town, fought a pack of ghost dogs in their dreams, lost Jon's girlfriend in the aether somewhere, and got paid by the magistrate for defeating the cult. Here are the main things I have noted the party as having unearthed (the stuff from the first and second sessions are appended further below): 1) Aler met with Vanessa, but everything he learned from her is so far a personal matter for his PC. Vanessa apparently left town for a month-long vacation shortly after their meeting, however, causing much consternation among the townsfolk (as she was their primary source of shiver.) 2) The party cased and broke into the cult compound, which turned out to be a small mansion of the Carroll family and largely disused. The party encountered several more planar distortions in this building, including a strange lightning bolt that passed through stone and did only 1d4 points of damage apiece, a vision of a shadowy man in a black helmet (deduced to be Arthon) pacing in the bedroom, a mirror with a video clip of Arthon having a conversation with a demon he calls "Lord Chavalk," and a pile of corpses in a closet that identified themselves by name, profession, and means of death in bloody script scrawled across their bodies. There was also one body-- a white-haired half-elf with grey skin like a shiver victim's-- whose body read "I'm not supposed to be here! Can you hear me? Hello?" 3) In addition to those dream haunts, the party defeated an invisible stalker and two phase spiders in combat, looted some magical supplies, jewelry, and gemstones, found some clues confirming the identities of Arthron and Genevieve, a book of cult membership rolls that had not been updated in a month, and a book in a language none of you reads with an Enter Dreamscape scroll tucked into the back cover along with an old map with the word "Sholaith" on it and a yellowed note from Arthon to Genevieve plotting to betray Jarvis and abscond to Asture with the idol. 4) The party captured two cultists and parlayed with Genevieve, who proved to be eager to trade information for her cultists' lives. According to her, the troubles in Hastenport are all the fault of her ex-husband, Arthon, who she and the elemental earth idol Sholaith banished to his dreamscape after they caught him conspiring with the demon Chavalk. She gave Jon a magical key that she said they used to banish him there, and stated that she and her cultists were leaving Hastenport through a magical Gate opened by Sholaith, so the party could see for themselves that the planar problems in Hastenport were no doing of hers. She claimed to have no knowledge of what he and Chavalk were trying to do, and that she no longer cared what became of him or their house (Jon alertly asked her if she therefore wouldn't mind signing a paper deeding the house to him, which she did.) Genevieve suggested that the reason for the thinness of the Veil was the interference of the dreamstone, in whatever area of Arthon's dreamworld it is situated. The underground chamber the cultists had evacuated from was free of the planar instability characterizing the rest of the region, which Genevieve said was due to the supernatural powers of the idol Sholaith. The cultists then departed through a magical gate. 5) The party retired to the inn to sleep, where they saw another extraplanar vision, this one of an inferno of fire rushing down the city streets. They then found themselves in a nightmarish version of Stonehill Road, naked and unarmed, where they fought off a pack of barghests. During the fight, Jon summoned a celestial hippogriff from the outer planes onto the unstable dreamworld, causing himself to get sucked through a rift and menaced by Arthon himself. Jon escaped with the assistance of a woman in green robes, who then seized up and disappeared herself. The group returned to the waking world tired but none the worse for wear. 6) Exiting the inn, the party learned from the coffee man and his customers that Vanessa the alchemist had left town. Visiting the apothecary, they saw her spiders still inside the shop and a note on the door in what Aler confirmed was her handwriting saying she would be back on April 23rd (one month from now) and warning that trespassers would be eaten by spiders. 7) Chatting with the street urchin who led you to Greeley's men on the docks the previous way, she led you to a shuttered inn, Mystic Delights, where she said she saw a dead body this morning. Jon recognized the body as one of the hookers from Jenn's brothel, Candy, and though the druid confirmed she had taken shiver, she also seemed to have many small bites on her body consistent with spiders. The party brought her back to Jenn, who was surprised by her death, and called the guard, who considered it a shiver overdose and took her body back to the guardhouse for toxicology. 8) The party observed Greeley, who appeared to be in rough shape and was said by guards to have confessed to being part of a conspiracy against the Duchess, being transferred to the capital in a carriage by ducal guards. He seemed to look oddly relieved by this turn of events. The ducal guards refused to let Jon speak to the accused. Red used a spell to send a messenger pigeon to tail the carriage and tell the party where it goes. 9) The magistrate was upset to hear that Genevieve had escaped, but paid the party 1000gp apiece for their help as promised, and also agreed to uphold Jon's ownership of the property (however temporary that's likely to be,) although he affirmed that as a crime scene, the guards would be going in regardless. He was surprised and visibly excited by the fake Sholaith statue you showed to him, but reined himself in and did not offer Jon an exorbitant price for it, instead agreeing to Jon's suggestion of having the artifact appraised. He also confirmed that Captain Black had reported to him about Greeley's confession and transfer to the capital, but did not know anything about Vanessa. 10) The party went back to Mystic Delights to look for more clues. They found the tracks of Kit and a couple of other children, but none of adults. Jon felt a planar distortion and heard a faint whisper from Piper: "Help me, Jon. Help me." And there we broke for the day! Busily yours, Laura p.s. Nick, Aler WILL get his amulet back next session. Either Leonard will rejoin us, or else Skenebrax will return as an NPC at the beginning of the game and return it to you.